Meetings can be very beneficial or the biggest waste of time for a credit union, company or organization.

How many times have you been in a work meeting and when it’s over wondered what was the purpose? Or, you attended a scheduled thirty minute meeting only to be looking at the clock as it passes an hour and half later. How many times have you sat in a meeting and think this is a waste of time? Recent studies have even raised the questions whether meetings are wasting companies’ resources, costs, and are not productive. However, we are conditioned to have meetings in business. So, how do we conduct a meeting in the most efficient and effective manner?

If you have been involved with meetings, you probably have a good foundation for what makes a good meeting such as:

Establish a start and end time for the meeting

Send an agenda out ahead of the meeting

Be punctual to the meeting

Have a clear objective for the meeting

Record minutes of the meeting

How many times have your best intentions about the meeting gone to the wayside? If a meeting starts late, there is wasted time. For example, a key participant in a meeting is 15 minutes late while 10 people wait. The company has wasted two and half hours of production time. If a clear objective is not established, employees may leave wondering what was accomplished in the meeting.

Since the purpose of the meeting is informing a group, brainstorming, or exchanging ideas consider these items for an even more effective meeting:

Re-evaluate if the meeting is necessary or can an e-mail communication achieve the desired results

Re-evaluate necessary personnel attending

Re-evaluate if the meeting time can be shortened. Employees will use whatever time is allotted for a meeting

Use a timekeeper for agenda and discussions

Strive to limit wasted time in the meeting

Don’t recap for late people, essentially starting the meeting over

Keep the meeting moving along

Avoid side conversations that are not on the agenda

Shut down long winded speakers. How many times are you sitting in a meeting thinking, “that person wants to hear themselves speak”

Conclude the meeting with a recap of the objective and how it was met

Don’t let meetings destroy your productivity at the credit union. Share what has been effective ways you have improved meetings or an incident where time was wasted during a meeting.

Good points Chad! I enjoy meetings when I feel like the objective for the meeting was accomplished. It is so very important to be punctual. We all have emergencies that result in our being tardy but that should not be a habit. It shows disrespect for the person who is in charge of the meeting.